New Bern chef wins Food Network episode

New Bern has won its second Food Network cooking competition since 2012

By Bill Handbill.hand@newbernsj.com

New Bern has won its second Food Network cooking competition since 2012, and this time it came down to key lime pie.

Persimmons chef Gerry Fong beat out three other chefs to take the crown in Sunday’s episode of “Cutthroat Kitchen.”

In October 2012, then-New Bern resident Nicole Costa held off three other bakers with a victory in the same network’s “Cupcake Wars.”

Cutthroat Kitchen’s angle is to have chefs preparing various dishes while at the same time trying their best to sabotage one another’s efforts. Show host Alton Brown assists the potential mayhem by auctioning off the tools the competitors can use against one another.

The chefs then have to prepare dishes in a 30-minute time period, having to overcome their handicaps.

Each competitor starts out with $25,000. The winner gets to keep whatever cash he hasn’t spent trying to gain an advantage over his competitors.

Fong survived a few acts of sabotage: In one segment, that he said did not air, his box of ingredients was locked up and he was handed a ring of 200 or 300 keys, only one of which would open the box.

He had to get it open during the 30 minutes he had to prepare his dish. “They edited it out, I think, because I found the key in about 90 seconds. I was the luckiest guy on the planet,” he said.

In another segment, when the chefs were obliged to make salad and soup, all his pots and pans were replaced with bread. After an attempt to cover the bread with foil and cook with it failed, Fong wrapped it in plastic wrap instead, and cooked it in a microwave.

In the last “two men standing” segment, he had to make a key lime pie.

“Sure, I’ve made key lime pie before,” he said, “If you mean taking it out of a box and putting whipped cream on it.”

While his fellow chef seemed to have an advantage, having made the pie before, Fong won a bid that did her in: Her limes were taken away and she had to dig lime wedges out of bottles of beer.

Fong said winning that particular bid was crucial to winning the show, He bid $8,000 to win it, outbidding his competitor who had run out of money winning other bids.

Less $17,000 he spent on auctions (he won two), Fong came home with $8,000 in winnings along with bragging rights.

“I’m stoked,” Fong said of winning the show.

About 20 friends, customers and co-workers joined Fong Sunday night to watch the show at the Isaac Taylor House Garden.

“It was great,” he said.

Costa, winner of an October 2012 episode of “Cupcake Wars,” said she was thrilled when she heard of Fong’s victory.

Costa, who now lives in Amarillo, Texas, with her military husband and family, said that winning the title should be a big help to Fong’s business.

“I hope that it does amazing things for Persimmons,” she said in a phone interview. “They’re special. I feel like, when they opened, there just wasn’t the appreciation for it that a culinary masterpiece deserves.”